“That I hadn’t lent it to either of you? It didn’t occur to you to write your own?” Vanderbank went on. “Well, but if it isn’t mine? It ISN’T mine, I’m sure.” “Therefore also if it can’t be Tishy’s--” “The thing’s simple enough--it’s mother’s.” “‘Simple’?” Vanderbank laughed. “I like you! And may I ask if you’ve read the remarkable work?” “Oh yes.” Then she wonderfully said: “For Tishy.” “To see if it would do?” “I’ve often done that,” the girl returned. “And she takes your word?” “Generally. I think I remember she did that time.” “And read the confounded thing?” “Oh no!” said Nanda. He looked at her a moment longer. “You’re too particular!” he rather oddly sounded, turning away with it to meet Mr. Longdon. II When after dinner the company was restored to the upper rooms the Duchess was on her feet as soon as the door opened for the entrance of the gentlemen. Then it might have been seen that she had a purpose, for as soon as the elements had again, with a due amount of the usual shuffling and mismatching, been mixed, her case proved the first to have been settled. She had got Mr. Longdon beside her on a sofa that was just right for two. “I’ve seized you without a scruple,” she frankly said, “for there are things I want to say to you as well as very particularly to ask. More than anything else of course I want again to thank you.” No collapse of Mr. Longdon’s was ever incompatible with his sitting well forward. “‘Again’?” “Do you look so blank,” she demanded, “because you’ve really forgotten the gratitude I expressed to you when you were so good as to bring Nanda up for Aggie’s marriage?--or because you don’t think it a matter I should trouble myself to return to? How can I help it,” she went on without waiting for his answer, “if I see your hand in everything that has happened since the so interesting talk I had with you last summer at Mertle? There have been times when I’ve really thought of writing to you; I’ve even had a bold bad idea of proposing myself to you for a Sunday. Then the crisis, my momentary alarm, has struck me as blowing over, and I’ve felt I could wait for some luck like this, which would sooner or later come.” Her companion, however, appeared to leave the luck so on her hands that she could only snatch up, to cover its nudity, the next handsomest assumption. “I see you cleverly guess that what I’ve been worried about is the effect on Mrs. Brook of the loss of her dear Mitchy. If you’ve not at all events had your own impression of this effect, isn’t that only because these last months you’ve seen so little of her? I’VE seen,” said the Duchess, “enough and to spare.” She waited as if for her vision, on this, to be flashed back at her, but the only result of her speech was that her friend looked hard at somebody else. It was just this symptom indeed that perhaps sufficed her, for in a minute she was again afloat. “Things have turned out so much as I